

QUAIL. — Cotnrnix commu7m. 



It is rather curious, tliat the males precede the females by several days, and are 

 consec[uently more persecuted by the professional fowlers. 



The male bird does not pair like the partridge, but takes to himself a plurality of 

 wives, and, as is generally the case with such polygamists, has to fight many desperate 

 battles with others of its own sex. Although ill provided with weapons of offence, the 

 Quail is as fiery and courageous a bird as the gamecock ; and in Eastern countries is 

 largely kept and trained for the purpose of fighting prize-battles, on the residt of which 

 the owners stake large sums. The note of the male is a kind of shrill whistle, which is 

 only heard during the breeding season. 



The nest of the Quail is of no better construction than that of the partridge, being 

 merely a few bits of hay and dried herbage gathered into some little depression in the 

 bare ground, and generally entrusted under the protection of corn-stalks, clover, or a tuft 

 of rank grass. The number of eggs is generally about fourteen or fifteen, and their colour 

 is buffy white, marked with patches or speckles of brown. The young are able to run 

 about almost immediately after they leave the eggs, and are led by their parent to their 

 food. However wild they may be, many of these birds are killed by a very simple 

 device. The sportsman having marked down a covey of Quails, walks round them in 

 circles sufticiently large not to alarm them, and as he returns towards the spot whence 

 he started, he strikes off for another circle of less diameter. By describing a gradually 

 lessening spiral, he drives all the Quails together in the middle, where they pack closely 

 and suffer themselves to be killed in numbers. 



The colouring of the Quail is simple, but pleasing. The head is dark brown, except a 

 streak of pale brown over the eyes, and another on the top of the head passing towards 

 the nape of the neck. The whole upper surface is brown streaked with yellower brown, 

 and the feathers with lighter shafts. The chin and thi-oat are white, and around the throat 

 run two semicircular bands of dark brown, their points reaching as high as the ear-coverts, 

 and having a black patch in front. The breast is ratlier pale but warm brown, variegated 

 by the polished straw colour of the shafts, and the remainder of the under surface is 

 ochry white deepening into chestnut on the fianks. The female may be known by the 

 absence of the two dark semicircles on the throat, which even in the male are not acquired 



